


Disobedience

by Medie



Category: Equilibrium (2002)
Genre: Community: halfamoon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-14
Updated: 2010-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a perfect world, Equilibrium would have also starred Milla Jovovich as Viviana Preston, the leader of the resistance. This might be the first step toward such an end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disobedience

**Author's Note:**

> for [](http://community.livejournal.com/halfamoon/profile)[**halfamoon**](http://community.livejournal.com/halfamoon/) \- I love the movie, Equilibrium, and the themes it tried to address, but its handling of its female characters has never, ever, sat well with me.

I was obedient once.

Like all Libria's devoted inhabitants, I took my dose and eradicated my emotions. Day after day, I committed a crime against my heart and mind with each and every plunge of the needle. I erased any sentimentality the sight of my husband and my children could create. I served the Tetragrammaton without question.

And then I didn't.

It wasn't so easily done, of course. I had no logical reason to forgo the dose, no one does, and in that state wouldn't make the choice on my own.

Father and the founders of our so-called civilization, however, failed to take into account the variance of fate. Chance cannot be so easily eradicated and, somehow, chance decided to select me. I received a bad dose of Prozium.

To this day I don't know how. I've never been able to determine if it was merely a bad batch or if it was deliberately contaminated. Not that it matters, the end result is the same. My dose was useless and, as you would expect, I began to feel.

And I liked it.

At first, it was subtle. Emotions are, at their heart, nothing more than instinct. Particularly when it comes to one's own children. Nature's way of ensuring a parent's devotion to their offspring's survival. Evolution at its finest. In those early days, I dismissed these stirrings as exactly that. Our children were so young, still clinging to me, and I accepted it.

I convinced myself that I no longer needed Prozium, that my emotions were long since vanquished and the continued dose was little more than placebo. I was lying, of course, and badly, but it didn't matter. I stayed off the dose and I felt more.

The day would come, did come, when I could no longer pretend. When my husband touched my body, helping me up, and I felt myself come alive. It was a purely matter-of-fact thing. He helped me up during a training session. We were Clerics; he was the stronger, faster, I often lost in such fights.

For the first time, however, that day, his hand on mine sent a charge of desire flowing through me. I wanted him. Not for the mere creation of our children, no, I _wanted_ him. I wanted to know the feeling of his hands on my bare skin in a way I hadn't before. I wanted to _feel_ us.

John, however, felt nothing of the sort. John felt nothing at all. I hated him for it and loved him just the same. I contemplated contaminating his dose as mine had been contaminated. I wanted him to join me on the path I'd begun.

I wanted to take our children and run. Flee the city as others had fled. I knew no other Clerics had ever broken ranks, Father and the Ruling Council would be furious, as much as they could, but that just inflamed my desire all the more. I thought of everything that John and I knew. All that we could accomplish together. All that we could teach the rebels. We could organize, fight back, create a rebellion that was more than terrorism.

We could, possibly, even destroy the Tetragrammaton itself. Bring true freedom back to the human race.

I'd thought it a pretty fantasy then.

I know better now.

They came for me. I couldn't hide what I'd become forever. I fooled my husband, but not the other Clerics. I don't know who reported me. I don't care.

I was to be executed. Dressed in the robes, brought before the chamber, and there the lie truly began.

I know what John saw. I know what my children were told. I know a film exists in the archives, a recording of my burning, but it was not me. I don't know if a woman died that day or not, I pray not, but I survived. I was a Cleric of the Tetragrammaton. Given the opportunity, I fight.

I fought.

I needed no guns that day. Just my bare hands. I'd shed the robe and its hindering fabric, fighting through my guards with a fury I'd never known.

I fought and I escaped.

Errol, John's partner, had been waiting. To his credit, I'd known nothing of his choice and I pitied my husband. The two people closest to him had turned traitor to everything they served, everything he so faithfully followed, and he remained blissfully unaware.

"Viviana."

I'd never heard my name spoken like that before. I'd never appreciated the accent that rolled from Errol's lips so freely. I luxuriated in it.

He bent, offering me his coat, and I blushed. Heat rushing to my cheeks was something I'd never known. I savored that too as I stood before him.

"What will you do now?" he asked.

My eyes turned to the city around us. "Leave." I curled my lips into a smile. "The others are out there somewhere." My plan remained the same. I'd find them, teach them, and then I'd return with that now-familiar fury and claim my family. "I intend to find them."

"And pass state secrets?"

He smiled and I laughed. It rolled around us, rich and glorious, and I did it again just to hear the sound.

"At the very least."

I intend to never be obedient again and, I find, that I like it.


End file.
